Schools in Poland will begin offering COVID-19 vaccines to pupils aged 12 years and above when they reopen after the holidays next week. The jabs will be available on a voluntary basis.
“At the start of the school year, in all willing schools there will be vaccinations for children and young people aged 12 and up with parental consent,” tweeted the health ministry this morning.
ℹ️ Po rozpoczęciu roku szkolnego, za zgodą rodziców, we wszystkich chętnych szkołach odbędą się szczepienia dzieci i młodzieży od 12 roku życia. 💉🏫
Jeżeli ktokolwiek ma wątpliwości w temacie szczepień zapraszamy do kontaktu: [email protected]@szczepimysie— Ministerstwo Zdrowia (@MZ_GOV_PL) August 25, 2021
The country’s Medical Council – an expert body that advises the prime minister – gave its approval for the use of the Pfizer vaccine on people aged 12 to 15 in late May. That made over 2.5 million children eligible for vaccines at the time, according to official estimates.
The government then gave the go-ahead for children in that age group to begin receiving jabs on 7 June. As of this morning, 1.3 million doses of Covid vaccine have been administered to people in the 12-17 age group, according to government statistics.
So far, minors have been able to vaccinate at the same locations as adults. Legal guardians must give their consent for the procedure but are not required to be present during the jab itself.
From next week, when in-person teaching will resume after almost 18 months of on-and-off distance learning, vaccines will also be administrated in schools.
“Vaccinations are very important, so for several months now schools have started thorough preparations for this process,” said deputy education Marzena Machałek today. “The principals are organising it. They have clear guidelines. They know very well what to do.”
The government has allocated over 100 million zloty (€22 million) of extra funding for schools to procure the necessary equipment, reports Bankier.pl. A doctor will be present during the jabs to give a “greater feeling of safety”, says the health minister, Adam Niedzielski.
In Sopot, a town of 37,000 on Poland’s northern Baltic coast, schools will organise vaccinations between 13 and 17 September, local authorities have announced. Over 2,200 pupils will be eligible, reports local news outlet eSopot.
“A very difficult year of distance learning is behind us,” said the town’s deputy mayor, Magdalena Czarzyńska-Jachim. “Despite the enormous efforts of principals, teachers, students and parents, it was not a fully satisfactory form of transferring knowledge.”
“Nothing can replace direct contact with the teacher, peers, the possibility of building real relationships,” she continued. “We strongly encourage parents and guardians to take advantage of the opportunity to vaccinate your children in schools.”
Poland currently has the European Union’s lowest average of daily recorded new COVID-19 cases in proportion to population. However, the government has warned that, once the summer holidays finish and “normal mobility and social interaction” resumes, transmission of the virus will increase.
Almost 50% of Poles are now fully vaccinated. But, while the country’s vaccination rollout initially proceeded at roughly the same rate as the EU average, it has over the last three months fallen significantly behind, amid a slowdown in registrations.
There has also been a recent rise in anti-vaccine activity, often with links to the far right. Last month, a uniformed group entered an orphanage and confronted its director in an attempt to prevent children from receiving coronavirus vaccines.
Main image credit: Navy Medicine/Flickr (under public domain)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
